The chronology of some of this information might be slightly wrong, but the basic facts are true. Gav Knight and Jas Richardson were old mates from their scootering days in the 80's. Gav had toured the world and enjoyed chart success with The Shamen, TOTP and headling at Glastonbury and all the excess that goes with that territory. At some point he awoke to find himself touring with breakbeat ska band Maroon Town and he drafted in his old buddy Jas for a few shows.

Jas also knew Alan Owens from Looney Tunes and somewhere along the road they met Paul Mathieson, during his stints with 2 Tonic and early Orange Street. This eventually formed the nucleus of BBL.

Gav has always been a huge Soul afficianado with the obligatory rare collection of 45's, where as Paul and Alan are die hard Ska fans. Jas was a big fan of both genre's. So this laid down the initial aim of BBL, to be a band that performed both genre's. Gary Plews was next to join and although this rare soul and ska stuff was new to him, being a youngster n'all, he soon hooked into the offbeat and groovy style of playing. At this point in time, the lead vocals were manned by a chap called Shannon, who we all fondly remember as a huge Morrissey fan, but he could do a great version of Al Wilson's The Snake, so we allowed him the odd indiscretion. Dave Oakley was next to join on Hammond. Dave had been playing with a mod act named The Hideaways, who had recently disbanded and he was also rehearsing with a band named The DB5, one of half of which now forms the very wonderful Small Fakers.

Bang Bang Lulu made several appearances with this line up, before parting company with Shannon, who subsequently joined a local rock band. At which point Donna Bretton (also ex Hideaways/DB5) was drafted in, along with her friend, who she introduced to us as Captain Skalet. BBL was now setup as a band driven by many influences, albeit all of them related in some way to the mod/scootering culture. Dave's background was Soul and Mod influenced R&B, Donna is also an old school R&B fan. The Captain on the other hand loves Bluebeat, 2 Tone and Northern Soul. This blend of musical tastes drove the bands choice of repertoire and heavily influenced the way the bands original material developed. The bands first original song was titled "Monster Ska", as it began life as an instrumental and initially sounded like the Munsters theme tune. Even after the Captain penned some lyrics, the title stuck. Soon after this, "Beats Me" was introduced to the set. This had been a song that The Hideaways had originally flirted with. BBL took it on board, cranked up the tempo and gave it their big brass treatment.

The band and the set developed throughout 2007 and they played the VFM IOW Scooter Rally in August of that year, which was the bands first ever real big gig and by the end of 2007 the line up and the band was firmly established. More tunes arrived and BBL wrote their first soul original "Tired of Waiting". The band rarely do this song live because the production involved requires organ and piano and vibes and all sorts of bells and whistles, but it was great fun recording it.

2008 saw the introduction of more original songs and a new member Steve Moody on trumpet. I think Steve met up with BBL's sound engineer Kev Budd and told him, "they're pretty good but they'd be better if they had a trumpet player.. and guess what.." Steve adds another facet to the line up. A big ska and 2 tone fan, Steve also knows a lot of the old jamaican tunes and has played jazz and big band music. He also joins up the dots with the other South Coast Ska acts, as he went to school with Paul and Chris from Django, who were also involved with Looney Tunes and 2 Tonic. It's a small and incestuous world.

2008 also saw BBL release a mini album via internet download sites such as iTunes and Amazon. The title song "Ska Wars" reflects the bands penchant for taking the piss out of themselve's and perhaps also hints at the irony of the George Lucas Star Wars generations obsession with the style and culture of the 1960's. That same generation that flocked to cinema's to watch the Empire Strikes Back. Star Wars is to us, what James Bond, and The Thunderbirds was to the kids of the 60's. (ask Dave, he's old enough to remember seeing The Who on TOTP and watching The Prisoner the first time around)

Like so many today, BBL are all big fans of 60's and 70's sci fi shows, and there's even a wierd sort of irony here. It's like looking back into the past to get a glimpse of what tomorrow should look like. This obsession with retro-futurism, in a way, mirrors the paradox of "Mod Culture". Modernism has always claimed to be about looking forward, being "modern", both in dress and in attitude, but musically and artistically, it has mostly been imported and it is essentially a borrowed soundtrack. To British kids of the early sixties, Soul and R&B was a new kind of music, it would have sounded modern to them at least, but not so to the youth of Black America, who had long since experienced it's raw excitement as it developed out of Gospel, Blues and Jazz. Subsequent generations of British kids have discovered this music and they will continue to do so. It may not sound "modern" anymore, whatever that means in a post synthesizer, digital age, but it still sounds gritty, honest, exciting and right.

British "Mods" as a rule, had always looked back to antecedent US and Jamaican music and art as the foundation from which to shape something new. However, when the innovative London Mod Set drifted toward a truly new and experimental music and R&B was replaced by Psychedelia, many kids in the North of Britain simply rejected this and continued to clammer for the quality soul and bluebeat imports. Those south of the border, who also sneered upon the middle class vulgarities of the beads and frilly shirts of the emerging hippy generation, developed a more defiant image. This style eventually came to be known as "Skinhead".

In a nutshell, BBL as a band, line up with those that hung onto the original "working-class" concepts and ethos of the early scene. They identify with the music that frequented the London clubs like The Lyceum, Klooks Kleek, The Orchid, The Scene, The Locarno and of course The Flamingo. They also identify with the second coming in 79, they have to, some of the elder statesmen of the band were very much part of it. "I can remember the first time i turned up at my youth club in a smart boating blazer and cricket flannels, the week before i'd been wearing bondage trousers" Dave recalls, "they thought i'd really lost it this time. I told them that i was now a rude boy, i didnt even know what it meant but it was a term used by The Clash, so i knew it had to be cool. The Clash liked reggae and ska, we went to see them at the Top Rank in Southampton back in 77 and the sound system played nothing but bluebeat, rocksteady and dub for hours before the band came on stage, they always knew what was coming down and where their roots were."

So, what next for BBL? Well no more line up changes we hope, but BBL as always, are writing and working on new songs for the show, which recently saw the introduction of "The Rat" and "Rude Girl" plus a few BBL treatments of cover songs, such as Roland Alphonso's Shot In The Dark and a version of Frank Wilson's Do I Love You to name but a few. Whatever happens, we won't be moving into experimental tripped out soundscapes or exploring new boundaries in audio-visual wotname's anytime soon. We'll be playing Ska, Soul and proper R&B, and bringing the gritty sound of six decades of our adopted musical heritage to those that know and those that want to know.

DO I LOVE YOU

JOE 90

HAVE LOVE WILL TRAVEL

MONSTER SKA